Seven Arrows

Seven Arrows A heartbreaking story of victory defeat and of a spiritual search in a profane world this is the story of Night Bear and his people It is the tale of the land they cherish and the lives they hold s

Title: Seven Arrows

Author: Hyemeyohsts Storm

ISBN: 9780345329011

Page: 112

Format: Paperback

A heartbreaking story of victory, defeat, and of a spiritual search in a profane world, this is the story of Night Bear and his people It is the tale of the land they cherish and the lives they hold sacred, lived until the enemy can no longer be stopped, and the dead have few left to weep for them.

One thought on “Seven Arrows”

Seven Arrowsis weird and difficult and interesting and you should read it and I don’t say that lightly. It comes with a load of caveats. Seven Arrows is a book about Sundance, the relgion/philosophy of the native peoples of the Great Plains of North America, told by an (alleged) Cheyenne medicine man in the form of allegorical stories-within-stories. It twigs all of my instincts honed by writing in the field of Asian Studies, which remain skeptical of any book written in the early seventies t [...]

Just beginning, very excited.About a third of the way through, totally captivating.====I just finished and I most cedrtainly enjoyed this book. The storytelling is incredible and the Teachings are stories i look forward to sharing with my children someday.One thing that impressed me throughout this book was the discussion and digestion of experiences and issues, rites of passage, and confusing subjects we still encounter today, and at times, with much less wisdom. For example: the account of Nig [...]

"The Mouse, as you remember, perceives only whatever is very close to it. The teaching here is that when we look too closely within our Introspection, we may sit too much within the circle of ourselves to perceive anything clearly. To perceive the circle of the West, we must first move outside of it."Seven Arrows is a stunningly powerful work, with gifts that will elevate and subsume the reader.

Doubts about the cultural accuracy or authenticity of the author aside, this is a book that makes one think, and that one must read several times for everything to soak in, and even then, more will come over time. Like seeing the symbolism in other people's so-called Fairy Tales, every story can be seen for it's symbolisms, and this gives a very very pluralistic way of viewing the world, as with the complex imagery and symbolism of the Shield Brotherhood and multiple names. Very saddening to see [...]

Amazing stories, wonderful teachings, a book I would have recommended had I not learned about how the author, who is not Native American, obtained those stories. One could say the cultural inaccuracies make the work distinct from the Traditional Cheyenne stories.I'm sure his legal team tried that defense.

This was a really cool read -- explaining the medicine wheel through folklore, metaphors, photos, artwork, etc. Lots of Jungian themes that made it even more interesting to read after finishing Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

I read this book and loved it back in the 70s and just picked it up again this summer. It was as stunning and beautiful as I remembered. Seven Arrows tells the story of how the plains Indians were defeated in the late 1800s. But it is so much more. It also contains the most complete explanation of plains Indian religion that I have ever read. It is a beautiful book, both in its story and in its art. I love this book. It has a prominent place on my home bookshelf forever.

This is so very different from any other Native American book I've read in such a wonderful way. There's not really much of a plot here. It's mainly a series of stories told as the storytellers travel from tribal group to tribal group and sometimes they perish and another person picks up the storytelling. It gives a little bit of an idea of have the people lived, but most of all it tells allegorical stories about the medicine wheel and the religion of many native groups. It's very unusual and I' [...]

I'm taking this one slowly! This review covers it well:amazon/review/R36H76BAI've talked to some people who didn't get into this book, because the narrative is sort of looping and layered, but I'm really enjoying the story and what it is saying about story-telling itself. Kind of a meditation. Plus I didn't know anything about the Cheyenne or the symbolism of the medicine wheel. In a lot of ways it's a Native American version of psychological development, and different than European psychology i [...]

An interesting interweaving of teaching stories. Pre-contact life for Indigenous people is something I have often fantasized about, and the author cleverly guides us into a romantic telling of the past while simultaneously looping the reader into circumscribed circles of storytelling. Reading this book was a delicious journey into an imagined past. None of us have been to that time, but Hyemenyohsts Storm weaves a narrative that guides us into what living in that time may have looked like, and i [...]

This is one of those books that people who are interested in Native American philosophy read. I read it and found it simplistic and leaning towards the fictional. If you have spent any time on Native American reservations this book will seem dubious. As a fictional account it is beautifully written and the stories are interesting and have archetypal resonance. However, I would be very careful about accepting this as Native cultural experience and would encourage those interested to explore the c [...]

Only skimmed this one, really.But it confuses me. If it's meant to be a fictionalized parable, it sure doesn't look it when you pick up the book and start reading! Otherwise, it seems extremely presumptuous of Storm to be speaking for the whole Cheyenne/Crow nation per his own intro.Rather, I'm really wanting to know: who are all the people in those gorgeous vintage pictures, and what are *their* stories?

A wonderful, moving telling of the tragic impact of Europeans on the Native Americans of the Great Plains, from a Native American point of view; at the same time it is a fine explication of Cheyenne mythology, with the whole surrounding history also forming a mythological tale.